


The Pessimist

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26048785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: A science TA is found dead by Campus Security
Relationships: Jim Ellison & Blair Sandburg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Pessimist

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'pessimist'

The Pessimist

by Bluewolf

Ed Franks was a science TA that none of his acquaintances at Rainier liked. He was perpetually moody; nobody had ever seen him smile. So when Campus Security found him lying dead a short distance from his car, early one Thursday morning, nobody really cared.

Suzanne Tomaki sighed when the death was reported to her. Although she had quit her job with the police and moved to Rainier's security unit after a particularly nasty case involving children had left her somewhat traumatized by police work, basically she enjoyed what she did; but she was beginning to wonder if she should quit Rainier and move to a police unit in a seriously under-populated part of Alaska where the most likely 'crime' might be the shooting of a bear (in self-defense) out of season.

She phoned the police, then went out to check the body for herself. She was just passing Franks' car when a familiar blue and white truck pulled up beside it.

"Jim! Thank goodness!"

"Suzanne? What's wrong?"

"Oh - you're not here officially? No - I suppose it's really too fast - "

"I just brought Blair here - his car's in the shop - " - the note in his voice said 'again'.

"Problem?"

"A body - one of the TAs."

By then Blair had joined Jim. "Who?" he asked, an anxious note in his voice.

"Ed Franks."

"Oh." The note in his voice had changed from anxious to pretty well uncaring, and Jim glanced at him.

"You sound now as if you don't care," he said as they joined Suzanne in walking down the short path that led to Harcourt and Forrester Halls.

"I doubt anyone will," Blair said.

"Any reason?"

"Nobody liked him."

The three had reached the body. One of Suzanne's staff was standing beside it, 'on guard' so to speak.

Jim knelt, checking it. He glanced at Suzanne. "When was he found?"

"Possibly... ten minutes ago. At most, fifteen."

"The security check found him when we passed this area just on fifteen minutes ago," the guard said. "We did a quick check of the body, determined that he was dead and phoned the police."

"And you know who it was?"

"There can't be many people here who don't know him."

"He's right," Blair told Jim quietly. "Some of the students in other disciplines probably don't, but at least 75% of the people at Rainier do."

"Why?" Jim asked.

"Usually the only people everyone knows are... oh, the ones in administration, one or two Campus Security, some of the secretaries, reception staff... and even then it's usually the ones in whatever Hall you work in. But Ed... it was because nobody liked him. He was known by how gloomy he always was. He was a total pessimist. Even on the brightest of days with a good weather forecast, he insisted that it would rain before night. If - I know, big if - he won thousands of dollars in a competition, he was sure that either the organizers would do an about turn and declare the result was wrong or he would expect the money to be stolen inside a week."

"Wonder how anyone would develop that sort of mindset?" the guard muttered, almost to himself.

They were interrupted by the arrival of an ambulance; the EMTs were barely out of it when a black and white arrived.

The two patrol cops followed the EMTs over to where Jim was still kneeling beside the body.

Jim glanced up as they reached him. "No obvious cause of death," he said.

The EMTs took over, and after two or three minutes one glanced up, repeating what Jim had said. "Dead," he said. "No obvious sign of what killed him, though."

They put Franks onto a stretcher, loaded him into the ambulance and drove off.

Jim explained to the patrol cops what had happened, then the security guard explained how they'd found Franks lying there, and everyone scattered to their respective duties.

The TA had simply collapsed and died.

Until the hospital staff called the PD some twenty-four hours later.

Franks had been poisoned.

***

Because Jim was already involved - even though it was by chance - he was given the case.

Although he knew pretty well as much as anyone else, he began to read through the report Simon gave him. Found dead. Ambulance called. Police called - though in some ways Jim wondered why. There had been no blood, no obvious marks on the body... Of course, Suzanne, who had been a cop and was the one who phoned, would want to make sure all parameters were covered.

He was nearly finished when Blair, who had been stopped as he got off the elevator by Maureen Carter from Vice. Blair had been tutoring her fourteen-year-old son, who had been struggling with geography, and from the look on her face she was very happy about something.

"Good news?" Jim asked as Blair joined him.

"Mark got a B+ in his geography test last week," Blair said. "We're not being complacent about it, though; Maureen wants me to carry on with the tutoring for a while longer." He glanced at the thin sheaf of paper Jim was holding. "New case?"

"Yes and no. Your fellow TA, Franks - "

Blair frowned slightly.

"He was poisoned."

Blair's jaw dropped. "Poi... I know he wasn't liked, but I didn't think anyone disliked him enough to poison him."

"Do you know where he lived?"

"He had a house somewhere in Cascade - he'd lived with his mother, but she died last year. That's as much as I know. But Rainier - obviously - could give you an address."

Jim nodded and reached for the phone.

***

They went to the house via the hospital, where Jim collected the keys. It was in a reasonably affluent part of the city, and as they parked Blair commented that it wasn't poverty that had made the man so pessimistic.

Inside, Jim looked around. "You did say he was a science student, didn't you."

Blair nodded. "Even if I hadn't known that, it's pretty obvious," he muttered as he looked around the living room. Several pieces of scientific equipment were set up with obvious experiments left ticking over. A notebook lay on a table. Blair picked it up, not really expecting to understand much of what Franks had written, and stiffened.

"Jim... "

"Yes?"

"Franks was experimenting with a new poison he was trying to develop... to kill mice. And... this morning he took a small dose to ensure it was harmless to humans."

"So when he dropped dead... "

"His poison wasn't as harmless to humans as he thought."

"Basically self-inflicted as part of an experiment?"

Blair sighed. "Either that, or a well-disguised suicide."

***

They took the notebook to the hospital and showed it to the doctor who had examined Franks' body.

Dr. Petrie shook his head as he read Franks' last entry. "There are so many ways he could have checked this... "

"He wanted - needed - to present something that was - in his eyes - fully tested, doing what he wanted it to do," Blair said. "The man was a pessimist; in a way he expected it wouldn't do everything he hoped it would. In this instance... There are plants animals can safely eat that poison humans. He wanted to come up with something humans could safely ingest, if they accidentally did, that killed animals, specifically rats and mice. So he tested it on himself. He was, for once, trying to be optimistic, I suppose... "

"Or - pessimistically - he'd decided he wasn't going to find what he was looking for, and decided to kill himself?" Petrie finished.

Glad that the doctor had reached the same conclusion that he had, Blair nodded. "I didn't like the man, but I'd be happier to think it was a misguided accident."

"I can understand that," Petrie said.

And so that was the final report that Jim gave to Simon. That Franks had been trying to develop a new rodenticide, and accidentally killed himself.

Meanwhile Blair was giving that same report to the Rainier authorities, then he gave Franks' adviser the notebook that gave details of the experiments he had been doing.

Dr. Wakefield read through the last entries, and nodded. "I wouldn't have expected him to be so careless, but accidents do happen," he said. "Meanwhile, I'll check with the police, then go and see what I can do about the experiments you say he has set up in his house."

Blair retreated to his own domain in Artefact Storage Room 3, glad that he was more of an optimist. He was never likely to kill himself, deliberately or accidentally.

There was still far too much he wanted to do, so many more things to see. And, of course - a sentinel to help.


End file.
